A full computer the size of an SD card

One of Intel's bigger announcements at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas is a physically small and ultra power-efficient development platform that resembles an SD card. It's called Edison and it's designed to work with just about any device, from computers and phones to things like chairs, coffee makers, and whatever developers can conceive. In the short term, however, expect to see Edison become a player in the wearable computing market.

The Edison board features a low-power 22nm 400MHz Intel Quark SoC with two processing cores (x86). It has integrated Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, some LPDDR2 memory, a bit of NAND flash storage, and runs Linux. Given Edison's tiny size, there's a world of opportunity to construct wearable computing hardware and unique devices of all kinds.

"Intel Edison board-powered devices can cooperate in highly customized and sophisticated ways. These devices don't have to be hardwired one-trick ponies; they can house multiple apps that can be downloaded and installed just like we do with phones and tablets," Intel explains.

One example Intel gave is attaching Edison to a baby's onesie and using sensors to monitor his/her temperature, breathing, and motion. To keep the creative juices flowing, Intel also announced a "Make It Wearable" competition with $1.3 million worth of prizes up grabs for developers who come up with wearable tech powered by Edison.

I believe that MPC should harangue the Intel guys into renaming this chip as if they burn this brand, as they have a fair chance of doing (eg:Atom, Pentium, Celeron) then they'll drag Thomas Edison down with them. :-P